I recently finished the quest "In My Time of Need" on my most recent character. This is the first time I have decided to help Saadia instead of turning her in, just to see what would happen. However, I generally do not regard her as telling the truth.

Saadia claims that the Alik'r were hired by the Aldmeri Dominion to capture her, claiming that she was part of the resistance against them.

On the other hand, Kematu claims that has come on behalf of the Houses of Taneth to Skyrim to see Saadia brought to justice. He claims that she sold the city out to the Aldmeri Dominion.

I believe Kematu is more likely to be telling the truth because Saadia seems hesitant to tell the truth. Kematu, on the other hand, is very open and honest in telling you what you need to know. Furthermore, the Alik'r prisoner in Whiterun claims that he has shamed his companions and that he wants to start a new life, which causes me to believe that he is being honest about their cause. Also, the fact that Kematu doesn't kill her outright and instead paralyzes her in order to take her back to Hammerfell for justice shows that he is not an assassin like Saadia claims.

The fact that makes me doubt Saadia more than anything is that she claims that the Aldmeri hired the Alik'r to kill her, but since when have the Aldmeri needed to hire others (Especially from an enemy province) to do their work? They have their own Thalmor Justiciaries to do their work.

What are your opinions and thoughts on this?

Yup, Kematu is telling the truth. Also, one important fact, Hammerfell is free of Thalmor influence for now, so if there's one place Saadia should be safe from the Thalmor in Tamriel it's in Hammerfell, hence why she's lying. She fled the Thalmor from a place where they're not present to got to a place where they are free to capture and torture anyone they like? Sure... makes perfect sense.

Kematu

-Why would the thalmor send Alk'r assassins in an imperial controlled hold to do its dirty work?

-Due to the Empire's strained relationship with Hammerfell, it is understandable why the Alk'r Warriors had such a hard time getting into the city

-Why flee to Skyrim if you only spoke out against the AD? Why not another part of Hammerfell that is actively resisting?

-I checked them all (pickpocket inventory view), saw no note which is usually the Thalmor's calling card when hiring an assassin

Her story has too many holes

Good call. Never really thought of that. The Thalmor are pretty much free to do what they want in Skyrim. She probably fled to Skyrim so that the Thalmor could protect her.

First off... Not this topic again.

However it is my firm belief that neither side is being completely truthful in the matter. For what Kematu claims Saadia did(since Hammerfell is free of Thalmor influence) had to take place a LONG time ago. According to the timeline that would place Saadia now as an old woman. Like a REALLY old woman. And how did just one woman betray Hammerfell? Or a city?

Kematu is the most convincing in his story because the devs wrote the quest with one thing in mind. "How do YOU feel?" Will you fall for the lovely lady and help a damsel in distress? Or believe the silver tongued kematu?

I choose to help her. I could care less who is wrong or right. "Oh she pulled a dagger!" big deal! Kematu hides behind hired thugs who all try to kill you.

Hammerfell signed its treaty with the Dominion twenty years ago. So no she wouldn't have to be an Old Woman especially with the limitations animation has in displaying subtle age differences. So what if she'd be a little over forty? Does Delphine look like she's in her late fifties? nope but that's her age. Subtle age differences are not something animation can do. So unless you have proof besides "she looks so young" there is no reason to believe she couldn't be in her 50's

How did one woman betray a city? open the gates for the invading army, burn the grain silo so they don't have any food. Pass intelligent information to the enemy about a secret entrance to the city.

I always like reading these threads. I can't make heads or tails of the situation but I usually side with saadia just because by that point I'm thane of whiterun and feel obligated to protect its citizens. Both seem pretty clever and may be pulling the thalmor card just because they know its nord land and that the topic stirs up sympathy. It could have nothing to do with the thalmor for all I know but I do admit kematu's story rings truer.

she could be hiding from an abusive ex lover for all we know. Would explain why Kematu's men are always harrassing women on the road.

Yeah... he seems like a straight up guy and his man being imprisoned must be a mistake.

The latest unofficial patch version further possibly confirms that Kematu tells the truth seeing as Saadia is watching Heimskr's speech. Spying on him for the dominion perhaps?

really? I never see her outside the Bannered Mare.

I really doubt she is a thalmor spy in Whiterun which is supporting the empire.

Now if she was hiding out in Candle Hearth Hall in Windhelm...

Yep! From UESP:
Saadia should go outside to listen to Heimskr's preaching from 3pm to 7pm, but her work package at the inn overrides it. This bug is fixed by version 1.3.3 of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch.

Its a fairly new feature of the patch I think. Maybe her near capture made her rethink her life and she became a devout talosian(?) Lol.

Kematu. As others have pointed out, why would Saadia be hunted by the Thalmor for speaking out against them in Hammerfell? Everyone speaks out against the Dominion in Hammerfell. There's nothing out of the ordinary there.

Kematu isn't a very nice guy, but he is, as far as I'm concerned, obviously telling the truth.

My problem with this statement is that it assumes that the events happened recently, and Saadia fled straight for Skyrim. While I have no evidence to debunk this theory, there is also no evidence to support it. It's quite possible that Saadia spoke out against the Thalmor not long after the end of the Great War, and has been on the run since then, and Kematu and his men have only recently caught up with her. Of course, I won't deny there are issues with this (if she is telling the truth, why not go back to Hammerfell when they kicked the Thalmor out?), but to me, the fact that everyone is assuming that she just spoke out against the Thalmor a few weeks ago is a logical fallacy; there's no hard evidence to determine definitively when the events that led to Saadia being on the run happened.

A decent while ago. The general guidebook to skyrim mentions her being in Whiterun.

She didn't speak out against the thalmor. She helped them take Taaneth via treachery.

The Alik'r don't know where to search for her. After the thalmor took Taaneth she took off(Probably because the thalmor weren't as kind as they lead her to believe) All they have to go on are rumors, and just generally asking people if they've seen a redguard woman with a scar on her face. It can take quite a while to track someone down with only that to go off of.

I never checked on this ...but a friend said that after you turn her over to kematu you find a funeral urn with her name in whiteruns halls of the dead...

Does anyone know if this is true or just more hearsay???

If Saadia is wanted for speaking out against the Thalmor, why would she be hiding in Skyrim if the Redguards drove the AD out of Hammerfell?

I am not sure if this is true or not, but if it is, I am pretty sure it is just an oversight on the developers' side. This is just a hypothesis of mine, but from what I understand, the way it works is that if someone is killed in a city, their urn will appear in the burial hall of said city. The only way the developers had to get rid of Saadia from the game once the quest was completed with her being turned in to Kematu would be to kill her, right? So the developers might have just forgotten to make sure her urn did not appear in the hall of the dead.

Neither. Both have holes in their stories big enough to drive a truck through. Imo, there is another agenda at work here, and both are pulling the Thalmor card to gain your sympathy.